The Mockingbird Garden at ACC was honored to have the internationally acclaimed artist-Dianne Sonnenberg (Austin Mosaic Guild) come to the campus to teach a group of mosaic tile enthusiast the art of adding mosaic tile designs to pavers. The event took place in November. We were joined by ACC staff, neighbors, students, instructors and friends. …

Dianne Sonnenberg is coming to the Austin Community College on November 17, 2018 to show us how to to design mosaic paver from scratch. The pavers we design will be donated to the Mockingbird Garden as a part of the “Walking Path Project.” Dianne is an internationally known award winning mosaic artist so it is…

Today we managed to install the trellis (seen in photo bellow) with help from George and his crew. The cattle wire had to be cut with heavy-duty wire cutters. This trellis is more heavy duty than previous ones. The canopy adds another focal point to the garden. Can’t wait to see the beans take over. …

This photo was taken at night. The lighting makes the limestone bed radiate. It’s a peaceful time when the frogs come out of their hiding places and crow while the deer come from the wooded area to graze. I met with two bucks and a family of about 10 dear (all in the parking lot). …

The cinder block raised bed project is near completion. Our initial launch was ushered in with high school volunteers from Harmony Science Academy. The mulch was started with compost form the bin that had been accumulating. All excesses from the garden were piled in the same area, building a nice heap. As the materials decomposed…

The Moringa tree is called “the miracle tree.” The seeds can be used to purify water! There are so many uses of from this tree. It’s a super food, so image the nutrients loaded in this tree. I first found out about this wonderful tree from a friend who gave seeds and later a tree. …

After reading a few books, watching many videos, searching the net, and receiving a donation of broken tile from Clay Imports the first mosaic tile paver was completed. A personal experience All around it was fun but I didn’t realize the amount of time it took to finish one paver. I needed adhesive to glue…

One of our next projects is to create our final raised bed at the rear of the garden. The design was modeled in #sketchup to give us an exact count and better visual concept of the raised bed. The video below is short and sweet. It’s giving you the location of the area only. We…

Lasagna raised beds are a great way to garden while keeping your garden sustainable. In our case, we used as many materials from the garden as possible for instance: dried plants, leaves, compost, tree branches, corn harvest waste, pine needles, egg shells, cartons, grass clippings, newspapers, cardboard, and wood chips. We also used discarded cedar…

Corn was harvested from the garden a few days ago. Squirrels devoured the entire corn crop two years prior. A decision was made to move away from wide spaces to a more controlled garden with walking paths. The area where you see the corn in the picture below is now a natural raised bed. …

Mosaic Tips, Techniques & Materials with Bonnie Fitzgerald & Kim Wozniak In the video above, Bonnie demonstrates processes used to convert a plain ordinary paver into a beautiful work of art . Mosaic tiling is an old world art form. Rather than going into the history of Mosaic tile, why not display some of the…